tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post5126524075071053115..comments2024-03-27T16:48:21.039-05:00Comments on Wuthering <br>Expectations: Our viols cease, our wine is death - some bits of Ernest DowsonAmateur Reader (Tom)http://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-27020062208224259812015-05-08T11:18:51.597-05:002015-05-08T11:18:51.597-05:00Chekhov certainly was a fighter and denier. He kne...Chekhov certainly was a fighter and denier. He knew full well that he was dying but acted--as well as he could--like a healthy man. Consumption was an irritating inconvenience, not death. Until it was, that is.scott g.f.baileyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05726743149139510832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-54680447923907666452015-05-08T08:18:10.778-05:002015-05-08T08:18:10.778-05:00Crane, a Decadent, no. My own decadent, morbid ca...Crane, a Decadent, no. My own decadent, morbid catalog of early deaths got away from me. Your two categories are useful. Keats certainly looked at death clearly enough. Crane's sheer <i>activity</i> is hard to believe.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-32294598700067858532015-05-08T02:25:21.666-05:002015-05-08T02:25:21.666-05:00Was Stephen Crane a Decadent - or a decadent - th...Was Stephen Crane a Decadent - or a decadent - though? American, a war correspondent, realist. His poetry is violent, innovative and revolutionary. <br />There could be said to be two schools of tubercular writers : the fighters and deniers - Crane, Henley, Lawrence, Orwelll...and the ones who were "half in love with easeful Death", though Keats himself was a fighter.Roger Allenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11012987757094423896noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-63419489133266225432015-05-07T22:40:37.249-05:002015-05-07T22:40:37.249-05:00It is as if once they called themselves Decadent, ...It is as if once they called themselves Decadent, these poets had to enact their Decadence. The casualty rate was terrible. Dowson and Johnson in their 30s, Thompson and Wilde in their 40s, Davidson in his 50s (likely a suicide). Stephen Crane and Aubrey Beardsley in their 20s!<br /><br />Not all of the above were alcoholics, but many were. And who cares, it is shocking regardless. Poets, be Yeats, be Hardy!<br /><br />Dowson clearly was a better poet as his alcoholism worsened, which is baffling. Lionel Johnson became worse; Swinburne, to move back a bit became worse. I am just getting to the part of Swinburne's letters where his friends and family are conspiring to intervene somehow, since it is clear to everyone but Swinburne that he is on the verge of death.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-71592695708424540662015-05-07T17:06:06.400-05:002015-05-07T17:06:06.400-05:00"yearning, passionate love poems directed at ..."yearning, passionate love poems directed at an eleven year-old Polish waitress." Your man is a Kafka character; the poetic elevation of the letter V only confirms that. What is with 19th-century poets and alcoholism? None of the still-drinking alcoholics I know could scrabble together a readable poem.scott g.f.baileyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05726743149139510832noreply@blogger.com